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Ashley Young has admitted he expected Manchester United to be doing better than scrapping for fourth place this season.

The Red Devils began the campaign as one of the favourites to win the title, with the appointment of Jose Mourinho bringing with it a wave of optimism to Old Trafford. In addition huge sums were spent in the transfer market, including a world record fee of £89million on Paul Pogba.

However rather than competing at the top it’s touch and go whether the club will qualify for next season’s Champions League.

‘After ten draws at home, you think about the points that we’ve lost and thrown away and where we could have been in the league,’ Young told MUTV following the 1-1 result against Swansea at Old Trafford on Sunday.

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‘When you go one goal ahead you always want to get the second. We did try but it just wouldn’t come. I think on another day it could have been two or three. It wasn’t to come and we just have to prepare now for the other games.

‘A lot of people have been talking about fourth spot in the league but I thought we could go even higher than that. We’ve got a game in hand and a lot of tough games but as long as we’re prepared I’m sure we can go and get the points that we need.’

Jose Mourinho is battling for Champions League qualification on two fronts (Getty)

Sunday was United’s 14th draw in the Premier League this season and it seriously harmed their hopes of finishing in the top four. Another avenue to the Champions League is through the Europa League in which Celta Vigo stand in the way of the final. Young remains confident qualification can be secured despite mounting injury problems and complaints about fatigue.

‘It wasn’t [the result] we wanted against Swansea, but we’ve still got games and points to play for [in the Premier League] and the Europa League as well coming up.’

He continued: ‘We’ll have to recover again for the next few days and then we’ve got that trip to look forward to. It’s not ideal getting a few more injuries on top of the ones we’ve already got but we have to keep going.

‘We have plenty of incentive to get ourselves up for the Europa League semi-final and a chance to get to the final. If we can win that, we’ll get into the Champions League.’